Certain loose compressible materials have historically been packed by pressing them directly into a container such as a hogshead or a case. In the tobacco industry, presses have been developed which are capable of filling a hogshead or case with a single stroke of a vertical press ram. While such practices have numerous advantages and have achieved wide acceptance, they have the disadvantage that the empty container must be placed in the proper position preparatory to the pressing operation and that the packed container must then be moved out of the way, an operation which is time consuming and requires relatively expensive apparatus. Such press-in-the-container methods are also limited by the specific nature of the container employed, so that relatively large strong and relatively expensive containers are required. Such drawbacks have led to use of equipment which can form a large compressed cake of the tobacco or other material, with bale boards being provided at the bottom and top of the cake, and strapping then being applied about the bale boards to maintain the cake under compression, as shown in Hart et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,824,758.
It has also long been known to form bales of material, typically peat moss, asbestos, and the like, by pressing the material into a compression chamber and then ejecting the compressed cake from that chamber and applying a bag or wrapping to the ejected cake. Apparatus of this type are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. Dederick 583,462; Roberts et al 2,984,172; and Stangl 3,089,410. While the tobacco industry has attempted to follow such practices in recent years, particularly for the production of bales substantially smaller than the hogshead and like more common forms of compressed packages, this trend has met with only limited success because of the relatively low production rates and particularly, the fact that the bales tend to bulge, or to be excessively rounded, at the end which leads as the compressed cake is ejected. There has accordingly been a continuing need for improvement of such methods and apparatus.